


Iktsuarpok

by CherFleur



Series: The Blind Dog [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Birth of the Nagisa, Family History, Gen, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherFleur/pseuds/CherFleur
Summary: Nagisa Asuka was the last in a long line of Blooded Blades and she knew her history. She knew the story as it had been told for generations.It was, miraculously, true.It was, however, incomplete.Things are often lost to time, and though the Nagisa had managed to keep the heart of their beginnings with them, through generations and tragedy, certain things had fallen away.Such were the minds of mortal beings.





	1. Child of Sea and Shore

**Author's Note:**

> So this was the plan the second I posted chapter 17. I liked the idea of delving a little bit into who had started the Nagisa line.
> 
> It was supposed to be my birthday present to myself, but I can't quite hype myself up over it the way I'd like. I'm having some family issues, but I still wanted to get this surprise out for you guys.
> 
> If you see any errors, please let me know. I hope you enjoy it!

_“Once upon a time, in an era before the Villages were created,_

_before Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara had a dream,_

_there was a little girl on the shores of Uzushiogakure that loved sea turtles…”_

* * *

 

When Umiko was real little, her mama would take her down the shore over the big rocks to watch the sea turtles dig their way out of the sand and find their way to the ocean. They’d go every season together. Callused, salt stained hands more used to holding nets than pudgy little hands guiding her where to step and how not to slip. They’d practice writing their names in the sand and build little castles by starlight until dawn when life stirred beneath the sand.

There was no more of that.

Mama had died a few months back bringing Umiko’s little brother into the world. It was a little unexpected that she’d died, since she was Uzumaki, but sometimes things like that happened. More outside of Uzu, but it wasn’t unheard of within the lay of their little village, growing though it was. Childbirth was dangerous, even for people who had lots of chakra to spare, and Fuuinjutsu could only do so much.

It was like how mama told her they couldn’t chase off the birds that ate the baby turtles, because it was the circle of life.

Sometimes things died and that was okay.

The sea gave life, and all things eventually returned to it.

So this was the first time that Umiko was going down to the rocky shore to watch baby turtles dig their way out of the dark into the sun. To flop and flounder their way towards the lapping waves into the safety of the deep ocean where they’d grow big and strong and come back to make more babies someday. Maybe when Umiko got old enough and she found a husband, she’d bring her own babies down to see that sea turtles.

She thinks mama would have liked that.

Careful little hands that were just starting to grow the calluses of her trade from weaving nets made of chakra and seaweed clung to smoothed rock faces. Water wore away at everything, papa was always saying, like time it never stopped flowing and nothing could hold it back forever.

It was difficult, climbing down on her own, little bare feet curling toes into tiny pockmarks clinging with ghosts of chakra. She slipped a few times, getting scrapes on her palms and knees, bruising arms and legs hard enough that lips pursed at the pain. As a budding little fisherman Umiko had had her fair share of bumps and bruises, cutting her hands and feet on rocks and sharp knives.

She could take it because she was a tough little sea stone, just like papa said, but tears were okay because they had to make sure that the ocean stayed salty.

Umiko didn’t feel like crying though. She’d done enough of that after mama had first drifted away and her little nameless brother had come into the world. Papa said it was tradition to name him something after he was a year old, just like they’d done for her, in case the sea decided to take him back early. Said that his spirit wouldn’t linger or be polluted before reincarnation if they waited to name him until a year and a day after he’d been born. That sin didn’t stick until there was a name for the Shinigami to call when he came for you.

While she didn’t really get it, she loved him all the same, and called him a seagull baby because he liked to scream for food.

Papa thought it was funny, but she wasn’t wrong.

“Oof!” she grunted as she fell to the sand beneath the final rock. “Ugh, san’ in’ma mouth…”

A quick twist of spit and chakra in her mouth cleared the grit out as she stood, brushing off the sand from her butt as she stood.

Turning away from the intimidating wall of big sharp rocks, Umiko pattered through the sand towards the place she’d always sit with mama. It was smoother and had a dipping bowl in which to sit comfortably and for some reason it held the warmth of the sun better. She’d fallen asleep on it more than once, curled up with her head in mama’s lap and her rough hands petting her hair.

With a quick sniff at the sudden wetness in her nose, the girl scuttled up onto the rock, panting a little from the exertion of the morning. It was a rest day, so papa had said she could play if she wanted and didn’t have to spend her time with either baby bird or learning about weaving.

When she was bigger, they’d teach her how to use the boats and ships in the harbor so that someday if she wanted to, she could be a captain too.

That seemed like fun, but Umiko wasn’t about to decide anything just yet.

Maybe after her brother had a name.

Being down by the water was soothing, familiar and an infinite, unchangeable constant.

Pulling the little bag of fried fish from the night before out of the inside pocket of her yukata she settled down contently to watch the sand start to pop up here and there. Little flippers working from the inside to shuffle their way out into the world, to strive forwards towards the water, the tide taking them home.

It was just as the sun was cresting over horizon, turning the water burbling pinks, reds and yellow that she saw it. Out passed where the fishing boats went to lay down their nets, near where the merchants set out towards the other places in the world for trade.

The Reef Turtle!

Scrambling to her feet she nearly threw herself off of the rock to run towards the waterline, dancing around tiny turtle bodies as they emerged with the light of the sun. Hand lifting to her brow to shade her eyes from the unrelenting glare of the morning star so as not to impede her vision.

Like a whale breaching out of the water, the great, spiky beast rumbled up out of the depths, armored tails slapping against the water lazily. Mist trailed in the water around it, like another tail, a banner of where it had once been as the current and the wind brought tingles of _other_ chakra like droplets in the air.

Gray eyes sparkled an intense, sudden infatuation.

Little hands framed her mouth as she took a deep breath into her tiny lungs.

“Good Morning, Turtle-nii-san!” she cried as loudly as she could, startling a few of the birds that had wandered into the area.

Looking for a potential easy snack, like a little turtle whose shell wasn’t too hard just yet, the birds decided to try elsewhere. Because even though she wasn’t one of the Uzumaki, she was of their blood, and her lungs said as much from close distances.

It was impossible for it to have heard her, so great was the distance, but still she waved her arm energetically, a giant grin on her face that felt more real than it had in months.

Mama had said that the Reef Turtle was born from the Sage of Six Paths, that it’d brought Natural Chakra into the world. She’d said that it grew the beautiful coral reefs out in the ocean that the pearl divers worked in, trailing life behind it just like that mist. She said that the mist gave dreams almost like a genjutsu or a Uchiha’s eyes, but sometimes, if you were careful and concentrated, it could give visions of the future or maybe of the past.

The last sighting of the Reef Turtle, the great Tailed Beast, had been on Umiko’s naming day.

A good omen!

She startled when it turned towards the shore on which she stood, baby turtles flapping at her feet into the surf, flippers tapping against her little callused feet as they passed. Those three great, giant tails looked big from so far away Umiko couldn’t fathom what they must have looked like from up close. They lifted and waved before slapping into the surface as the water, sending waves crashing outwards from its titanic body.

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

Laughing in delight, Umiko lifted both arms to wave again, hopping up and down and near tumbling over herself as she tried not to crush little shells beneath her feet.

More mist filtered out around its great spiny form before it dived once more, the water smoothing out nearly instantly as it disappeared from view.

“Mama, I saw’t!” she crowed, twirling in place. “I saw da Reef Turtle!”

Best. Day. Ever!

~*~

Now that she’d seen the Reef Turtle for herself, Umiko spent every rest day she could out on what she called Turtle Beach.

Rarely did she see the Reef Turtle again, but every time she did she’d wave and call out a greeting to the giant being. Sometimes she’d get those tail slaps on the water again, but usually it seemed not to hear her and would dip beneath the water again.

It went on like that for a couple years until Umiko was old enough to learn how to use the dingy to get out to the fishing boats. She’d dragged it to the shore after she’d carefully rowed herself around the cape to her Turtle Beach, a new investigative tool in her arsenal.

Umiko wasn’t particularly learned, not being an actual Uzumaki Clan member, but she knew enough to scribble Seals onto her boat so that it wouldn’t get to badly scraped up. She might have run into a few rocks and nearly run it aground a couple of time, but it was still in working condition, even if it wasn’t pretty. It suited her needs fine, and if she wanted shiny things there were plenty of shells she could have papa braid into her hair.

Early in the morning on her rest days, her Turtle hunting out in the water began.

She knew enough to know that going out in bad weather wasn’t something she was capable of yet. Didn’t mean she couldn’t sit on the shore with her little rowboat propped up as an upside-down shelter and wait. Hoping to see him in spite of the murky weather and pouring rain, playing games and making complex stories.

Papa thought she was silly, chasing after the Reef Turtle all the time, but he didn’t tell her not to. He’d simply ruffle her braids and tweak her nose before he sent her on her way.

Eventually, when her brother, now named Mizuiro, got big enough she’d take him to Turtle Beach at hatching season to see the babies.

Just because Mama couldn’t didn’t mean that he shouldn’t get to have those mornings on the beach watching little flippers toss sand. Umiko would teach him about all the things that mama had had the time to teach her, because it helped to remember them and also because it was fair to him. Papa was still around to teach about all the fishing stuff, the weather and boats, about the trade rates and seasons for certain kinds of seafood.

Mama wasn’t there to talk about weaving Seals into nets, about singing the old songs and telling the old stories from way back when.

Umiko didn’t know them all, of course, but she’d teach him what she could, and the Elders would take care of the rest.

He wasn’t quite big enough to help her with her Turtle Watching, but he was getting there. Umiko hoped that _she_ grew big enough that she’d be able to carry him over the big rocks by the time the hatching started.

She _thinks_ she was his age when they started, but it was a long time ago now.

“Happy Solstice Turtle-nii-san!” she hollered as was her way when he surfaced, delighted at the waterspout he created in response. “Good tidings!”

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

Wave _Ka- **SPLASH**!_

The mist that it released shifted on a current of wind up, up, up into the sky, catching the morning sunlight and bursting color across the ocean. Umiko found herself speechless for a moment, eyes wide and breath caught at the sudden burst of beauty that she could almost feel in her bones.

Tears prickled her eyes at the sight, that other chakra prickling at her skin even as she grinned, eyes crinkling. Heedless of the water sliding over blood darkened cheeks on sun dark skin the girl waved enthusiastically again, heart pounding loudly in her chest.

“Thank ya for da rainbow!”

~*~

While she loved the game and seeing the great creature, well.

Turtle Chasing was more about playing out on the water than actually catching up to the great Reef Turtle.

Umiko might be a willful, energetic child like most in the village, but she didn’t start tasks with a mind towards a goal she didn’t likely see coming about. Mama had been, and papa was, a realist, and while they didn’t mind encouraging her creativity and imagination, they also didn’t want her getting hurt doing something she wasn’t ready for.

There was no way of being ready to meet a great being like the Reef Turtle, but that didn’t mean she didn’t dream about it.

“Goin’ off ta chase da _minogame_ ‘gain, Umi-chan?” papa asked her as he handed her some candied fruit. “On ya nameday?”

“Yea, papa!” recently, she’d lost another tooth and so air whistled through the gap. “Seein’ Turtle-nii-san’d be a good nameday presen’, wouldn’it?”

“Good omens,” he agreed, thick fingered black skinned hands weaving her auburn hair into little braids. “Can’ever ‘ave too many.”

Sometimes she wished that she had papa’s white hair, black skin and bright blue eyes, but usually she liked seeing reminders of her mama’s red hair, pale skin and purple eyes. People called her a good mix of the two, nut brown and gray eyed though she was, hair a brownish red.

Mostly, she was happy to be alive.

Umiko was Umiko. Her mother was the bright red of sea cucumbers crawling across seaweed coated stones. The silver and purple flash of a fish’s scales when the water was disturbed, calling to be chased and found.

She was everywhere, if she knew how to look.

“Mizu-chan an’ I’ll be waitin’ at da meetin’ hall for ya ‘t noon,” he told her once he’d finished hanging the fishbones in her hair for luck and to denote the family trade. “Try notta be late.”

“’Kay kay, papa!”

So with her snacks tucked into her short yukata pocket and her hair done securely, the young girl ran to her rocky Turtle Beach.

Pushing the little rowboat out into the water was always a struggle, thin, whippy arms and legs shaking as she heaved and hoed. It was difficult, but she always felt better when it was done and she could huff and puff in the safety of the boat, soothed by the rocking of the ocean. On the back end of her rowboat there was a carefully woven line that connected to the shore, tied around one of those large rocks that protected the beach.

Just in case she got tired and started drifting. It was better to be able to reel herself back in that way, than to be lost out at sea.

Sure, it limited her area of exploration, but it also got her home in time for dinner.

Most of the time.

Playing pretend more than searching for her beloved Reef Turtle, Umiko liked to make-believe that she was a pirate out on the open sea. That she was exploring the lands beyond the Elemental Nations, out passed the great inky abyss that split the world in two. That she’d found some great sunken village of a time gone by that had once been blessed by the Sage of Six Paths, housing some great chakra magic that could save the world.

Did she want to hoard it for herself, like a pirate would?

Would she share it, and bring about world peace?

Or would she leave, deciding that a simple pirate couldn’t choose the fate of the world?

Tough, life altering decisions were being made, when something slammed into the bottom of her boat and nearly sent her flying over the side into the water.

Immediate anxiety burst in her chest and Umiko dropped to the belly of her little boat, holding onto the seat tightly, eyes wide. She’d done this dozens of time by now and she’d never had anything even come near her boat. The Seals papa had put on the bottom made it so that the creatures of the sea avoided it something fierce, meaning that she couldn’t even fish from her rowboat.

What was that?

“H-Hello?” she muttered tremulously, inching towards the side to look over. “’S anyone there?”

Silence.

“C’mon, Umi, quit talkin’ at yaself.”

Peeking over the side Umiko felt terror slide behind her ribcage and encircle her heart in cold, skeletal fingers.

A shark toothed smile in a very humanish face regarded her before something slammed into her boat once again, sending her tumbling back. Before she could reorient herself the boat jerked again, this time differently, and she spun around on her hands and knees to stare in horror at the frayed edge of her lifeline. She’d already been at the end of her rope, and the current could pull her away much faster than she could row back to shore.

Long fingered, extra jointed, finned hands shimmering with greenish blue scales slid over the edge of her boat and hooked curved talons over one of her oars.

Her only chance to go home.

“No!” she cried in fear, clamoring after it even as the boat rocked again, sending her to her back. “No, please!”

Watery laughter surrounded her, bubbling up out of the depths and she felt tears pooling in her eyes as large black, depthless ones stared at her over the edge of her boat.

“Ooh, po’ah litta walkie,” susurrated from one side and then the other, voices indistinguishable from one another. “All lone onna wadda.”

“Please, Hamaguchi-san!” her lips trembled, and tears slid over the apples of her cheeks as she huddled in on herself. “Please, I wanna go back!”

“Ooh, bu’ dontchu lahik da wadda?” one dark eyed individual asked, facial fins flaring outwards from their cheeks. “Walkie lahik da wadda ‘til dayha losin’ da land, huh?”

There were horror stories, about what the Hamaguchi people did to the people who dared to make a living on the sea. Unlike their more compassionate cousins the Hoshigaki who judged a person based on the honesty of the blood that slid through their veins, the Hamaguchi just hated people who lived on land. No one knew where the Hamaguchi lived, most suspected that they had an island hidden out in the water where they daren’t go, but no one really knew.

Boats would be found though, with mangled, half eaten corpses aboard. Teeth marks that matched those of the Hamaguchi, their distinctive scales scraped from the wood before the tainted boat was burned.

Papa had lost a brother to the Hamaguchi way back before Umiko had been born, and she vaguely remembered a young woman and her paramour had washed ashore a few years back.

The Hamaguchi didn’t normally come so close to the shores of Uzushio though, didn’t go within spitting distance of the Uzumaki.

Why had they now?

“I love da ocean,” she whispered wetly, blinking rapidly, hot tears spilling over as numbness slid over trembling features. Her heart flashed to thick fingers in her hair, a flash of red in the shallows, a curious head tilt and wide trusting eyes. She was going to die. “I love it.”

She was going to be eaten alive by people who didn’t even have the decency to be animals who didn’t know better.

On her nameday.

Eyes widening as another hook clawed, scaled hand reached in to take her other oar Umiko shrank back underneath the rowboat’s seat. More watery laughter and fake, sympathetic cooing slid over her ears as her little boat was bumped again and again.

“Wehl, if’n da walkie lahikin’ da wadda,” slid out from between serrated teeth. “Be jussa leavin’ ya ta’t.”

With that, they slid back down into the water, taking her oars, and her hopes, with them.

When she got up the courage to sit up from her curled position, her tears had stopped, and her nose was stuffy. Swallowing thickly, she looked hastily towards the horizon, hoping to find land _somewhere_.

And looked.

And _looked_.

A sob escaped her before she could help it, her little callused hand raising to rub at her eyes as her other wrapped around her thin waist. Fabric rustled and her inside pocket shifted against her ribcage, reminding her of the candied fruit that her papa had given her.

Pulling them out, she sniffled, staring dully down at plum slices, persimmons and mango. As last meals went, it wasn’t so bad.

So, it looked like they weren’t going to eat her. Probably too bony for them. But.

But they’d obviously been moving her while they’d been playing with her and she couldn’t see, didn’t know how far away she was. Too far, either way, especially with no oars and no lifeline.

No food after she finished her fruit. Only a single water skin of fresh water.

Umiko could sorta filter the salt outta seawater, but not all of it and there was only so much that she could ingest without making herself sick. Not that she’d last much longer without food either way.

Ultimately, she was going to starve to death under the heat of the sun.

Even though she knew it would just dehydrate her faster, Umiko cried, curled around a little bag of fruit that was meant as a gift.

Crying was tiring though, and she couldn’t do it for long, even if she was full of terror and grief at what was to come.

Since she had nothing else to do, she went back to her game. It wasn’t as fun, but she needed to distract herself somehow and there was nothing else she could think of to do that, other than perhaps singing or sleeping. She was too worked up for sleep and she didn’t think that she was quite in the mood to sing, so the only thing to do was to play make believe.

It was safer than sulking in depression until she died.

So the great Pirate Queen Umiko of Uzushiogakure swung her great trident made of coral – gifted by the Reef Turtle, of course – to part the clouds above! The storm paused at the power of her mighty cleave, the heavens themselves taking great heaving breaths in wonder. She’d saved the ship and her crew from no doubt terrible injury and even death from the unwitting storm the Great Beetle had stirred in its wake. A playful, silly creature, the Great Beetle had little in the way of animosity and was said to gambol in the mountains more than above the sea and so likely knew nothing of hurricanes.

Oh no, a tsunami was going to overtake barrier walls protecting the underwater city which had stood for a thousand years! Pirate Queen Umiko, who had taken to storing all her most important treasures beneath the waves, and as such was having none of it!

She’d just have to take her Coral Trident and –

The boat rocked beneath her again, and renewed terror dropped her to the belly of the boat once again.

Were they back?! Were they going to eat her?! Umiko didn’t _want_ to die yet!

Mist tickled at her skin, that chakra that was so very full of _other_ hitting her deep in her stomach so that she gasped for breath. The world around her grew silent in a way that she had never experienced in her short years, like the realm of existence was stretching to fit something it wasn’t built to accommodate.

Water no longer lapped at the edges of her rowboat, the very air had found serenity, halting the wind in its tracks. Her heartbeat was loud in a way that it had never been before, her breathes more felt and tasted than she could ever remember.

She didn’t even have to get up from the belly of her boat to see the great armored plates of her beloved Reef Turtle in all its glory.

Before she could help herself, habit took over.

Habit, and a deep-seated _hope_.

“Hello Turtle-nii-san!” she cried, voice cracking against the dryness of her throat as a grin overtook her slightly burnt face. “It’s good ta see ya!”

It sounded like rock scraping against itself as the titanic creature shifted in place, great tails swaying to the side as it did so. That single open gigantic red and yellow eye blinked from way, way, _way_ up in the air before it was suddenly getting closer at ridiculous speeds.

Her body vibrated with force before she heard anything, her heart shuddering in her chest almost painfully.

“What is a little girl doing so far from her shore?” it asked her in a curious all-encompassing voice, the way it spoke fancy, but denoting that it was masculine in some form. “A little girl is normally on her shore playing games.”

Even though his voice was loud and somewhat painful to hear, Umiko felt her lips trembling again at the reminder of just what had happened to her.

“I was playin’ on my boat an’ then there were _Hamaguchi_ an’ I thought they was gonna _eat_ me an’ they cut ma rope an’ stole ma oars an’ I dunno how ta get _back_ ta da shore an’ – an’ –” hiccupping in distress. “An’ I dunno how ta get ho-ha-ha-hoo _ooome_ …”

Crying anew, Umiko pressed her hands against her eyes and sobbed, barely noticing the way the rocky surface around that large eye creased unhappily.

“This Isobu will take the little girl to her home,” he said to her once she was sniffling instead of weeping loudly like the child she was. “This Isobu carries his home with him always, but this Isobu will take the girl to her shore so that she can go home and continue her play.”

Wiping her eyes one last time, Umiko stood on shaky legs, noting with a jolt of clarity that she was no longer floating on the sea. Instead, her little rowboat was sitting on one of the Reef Turtle’s tails and he was carrying her next to his face while he swam.

“Ya name’s Isobu?” she asked, sniffling and feeling hope unfurl in her chest. “C’n I call ya Isobu-nii-san?”

That large eye blinked at her slowly.

“If a girl gives this one a name to call her as well,” he stated after a moment. “Then this Isobu wouldn’t mind being so spoken to.”

“M’names Umiko!” she grinned at him, eyes sparkling with more than tears once again. “Thanks for the ride, Isobu-nii-san!”

“The little girl from the shore’s name is Umiko,” Isobu mused, eye crinkling like a cliff face shifting. “This one likes Umiko’s name. A child of the sea and shore, she is.”

“Ooh, if’n I had a blood name, y’think it’d be Ohama?” she asked excitedly, leaning over the edge of her boat trustingly. “Does Isobu-nii-san have a blood name? I know ya was born from da Sage, same’s the other Great Beings, but do ya got’un?”

“Hmm,” something almost sad passed through the ever-present mist that surrounded the turtle and Umiko felt concern tilt her features. “This one’s family name would perhaps be Ōtsutsuki if this one favored any. And for Umiko? Isobu likes the name Nagisa.”

“Nagisa Umiko?” she tasted the name, feeling it out in her mouth, ignoring the whistle of her missing tooth and the unclenching knot of fear in her chest. “I think I like it. C’n I have it?”

“This one does not much mind what Umiko calls herself,” the Reef Turtle told her plainly. “But if Umiko would like the name, Isobu will not stop her.”

“Isobu-nii-san talks all fancy,” she giggled to herself, delighted when the shore came into sight on the distant horizon. She’d been drifting for _hours_ already and she’d definitely missed her meetup with papa and Mizuiro. She was feeling woozy and tired, but she was so very relieved. “Wanna be friends, Isobu-nii-san?”

“This one has had few… ‘friends’,” the three tailed turtle spoke thoughtfully. “So he does not know what the little girl wants.”

“Wanna play with me?”

“Play what?”

“Yea, see, I preten’ I’m –”

While her nameday had perhaps started off well in the early morning hours and gotten terribly, terrifyingly shaky in the middle, it hadn’t ended badly at all.

A lifelong friend was definitely the best nameday present she’d ever gotten. _Especially_ because it was her beloved Reef Turtle.

Umiko would never regret Turtle Beach, or the adventures it had gifted her with.

The sea gives and the sea takes.

This time, it had given.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the second and final part of Iktsuarpok! I had fun writing this so I hope you guys enjoy reading it, lol.
> 
> Typos or anything, please let me know!

_“He was the Sanbi and his name was Isobu._

_He’d been at the side of Uzushio for generations, Friend to the Nagisa family since a little girl chasing sea turtles followed him out to sea._

_We fought for him, and we lost…”_

 

* * *

Isobu was an inequitable existence.

He didn’t feel old, but he knew in comparison to other sentient beings he and his siblings were ancient. Just because he’d existed for centuries, however, didn’t mean that he felt like he had to be crotchety and cranky like Kurama-nii was. Didn’t need to be angry about being alive like Shukaku was a good portion of the time, throwing sandstorms about the way he did.

Still, it was like every time he switched eyes the world changed again.

He’d had humans speak to him any number of times over the ages, their lives burning out quickly like a summer storm.

It was sad.

Few had approached him and treated him as an equal, few had thought him more than a magical beast which brought luck.

Not that he minded that, really. It was nice to be considered an auspicious being, to be cheered at the sight of.

Got lonely, though.

After a while, his siblings stopped visiting him on the coast, stopped descending into their shared mental space. No more wrestling with Saiken and Gyūki, no more scuffles with Shukaku on the shoreline making castles and moats. They didn’t answer when he called, most of the time, so he had to make do with the great whales and sharks in the deep.

After a while, he’d stopped trying.

There was a particularly chatty giant squid who lived just this side of the continental crevasse that he liked to get into riddle games with.

A pod of blue whales didn’t mind when he traveled with them, sharing tales of times gone by and the great chakra that lived in the sea.

The megalodon would swim to and from the Summoning Realm and sing sea shanties of the battle they held with the porpoises on the other side. He had no interest in their ongoing war, but the songs they came up with were nice, catchy in a way that used to drive Gyūki crazy. That big brother had always hated word play something fierce, especially when things rhymed or alliterated.

It wasn’t the same as having his family with him. It wasn’t the same as being called brother and having brothers and sisters of his own to call on. To talk about their father who was long gone, their half human siblings who had been unable to settle their differences before they’d died and sent the world spiraling. Uncle, who had become something akin to themselves and yet different, another person who the world chakra had changed.

There was just Isobu now.

Just him and the endless open water.

Until a little girl shouted at him from the seashore.

He’d chosen this place as the center of his ranging because the humans who lived in the whirlpool’s center were longer lived than the others. Because he liked to listen to the fishermen cast their nets and sing their songs from deep below them. Liked the sound of festivals at the changing of the season and the coming of a new year.

Most humans didn’t speak to him. Didn’t act like he could understand them.

This little girl was most definitely not one of them, if the volume and continuity of her visits was anything to go by.

Sure, he wouldn’t have heard her if the water hadn’t magnified the sound for him, but it was funny to watch her get excited when he responded.

He didn’t go close to the shore, though. Even if they didn’t mind him out in the water, humans were easily frightened when he stepped onto land. Sometimes he wondered if it was because, like an iceberg, you couldn’t see how large he was when partially submerged. Sure, they’d throw flowers into the air if Chōmei flew overhead, but Isobu couldn’t step onto dry land for fear their little hearts would give out.

It didn’t matter though.

The silly dancing girl on the shore with her stories was interesting, but he couldn’t go to the shore without causing a panic and she’d never come out far enough for him to speak to her.

Children might be more accepting than their fully-grown counterparts, but humans were finicky creatures with an unfortunate penchant for greed. He’d learned that, jealousy as a feeling, when watching Indra and Ashura fall apart, his somewhat human brothers.

This changed though, when he was idly chasing some of those scaly humans – much different from the shark like humans – around in his territory. They were irritating, strange creatures that they were, an unfortunate mixture of human and Natural Chakra that had warped their very beings. More bestial than most, but a natural production of the evolution all the same.

More than for the shark humans, his chakra made them ill. He was pretty sure that it had something to do with the way that they cannibalized their own kind, but he wasn’t actually sure.

Biology was always more of Matatabi’s interest than his.

He was distracted from his idle chase, however, when he heard a familiar voice where it most certainly shouldn’t have been.

The loud girl from the shore was out in the middle of the ocean!

What in the name of Hagoromo could have possessed her to do that? He was quite sure that humans at this stage of development weren’t supposed to be very far from their parents.

Of course, after this befriending business he made sure that he ate any of the scaly humans, these Hamaguchi, that he came across. Couldn’t let weird scaly fish people eat his new little friend now, could he?

It had been a long time since he’d had anyone call him nii-san, and he wouldn’t let pesky cannibals take that away from him.

~*~

“Isobu-nii-san!” cried his loud little human. “Wanna meet ma papa?”

He blinked his eye closed in contemplation.

As far as Umiko was concerned, her father would probably just ask him to make sure that he got her home in time for curfew. Isobu was pretty sure that most human parental units didn’t worry about curfew when faced with a giant chakra being, but she was the expert.

The only humans he knew intimately had been more alien than not, so who was he kidding?

“This one will meet Umiko’s father,” he allowed, unable to loosen his speech the way she kept urging him to. “But not today. Did not Umiko wish to continue the quest to the sunken city of Tori-kami?”

“Next day o’ rest, then!”

When first they had begun the games of pretend he had been surprised at the way his unconsciously produced mist had interpreted her active imagination. He no longer was, because he knew now that there was just enough ability left in her for ninshu to shine over ninjutsu. She was not ninja, and all the chakra tricks that she knew involved using the nature of things to her advantage over changing that nature.

Umiko, now Nagisa Umiko, tended to shape his mist into a genjutsu playground that played out the great stories she wrote in her head.

She barely seemed to notice, however, that anything had changed at all, and he often wondered if in her mind anything had.

With the power of a creative mind, Isobu got to witness fantastical birds living in an underwater cage made of chakra. The only thing keeping a once flying city from being crushed by the weight of the deep ocean. He got to witness his siblings gifting people treasures with which to keep themselves and their loved ones safe, their visage provided from his own mind rather than hers.

There was magic, mayhem, damsels – usually hulking men in armor, oddly enough – and the never-ending question of if the protagonists – Umiko and Isobu – had made the correct choice.

It was mind-bogglingly fun, to live through these daring experiences in their days together, to know just what a human mind could create even when they knew so little of the world.

If this was what friendship was, Isobu never wanted it to end.

~*~

“Papa, this’s Isobu-nii-san. Isobu-nii-san, this’s Papa.”

Pale blue eyes in a dark face lined by the sun looked up at him placidly from the slightly larger boat that he didn’t identify as Umiko’s immediately.

A long moment of silence before the man’s long white dreadlocks shifted in a nod, beads and bones clicking together as he bowed.

“Thanks fa takin’ care o’ my Umi-chan,” the man said as he stood straight again. “’S good knowin’ she’s got some’n else lookin’ afta her.”

Isobu rumbled in his stomach in agreement. Umiko’s mind could take her into dangerous territory if she weren’t careful.

And he wasn’t quite sure if he’d eaten all the Hamaguchi yet.

“Papa, Isobu-nii-san gave ussa blood name!”

Blue eyes blinked in the first sign of surprise that had crossed those dark features, white brows rising curiously as the man looked first to his daughter, and then back to Isobu.

“This one has a fondness for the name Nagisa,” the Sanbi spoke in answer. “And this one has a fondness for the girl of sea and shore.”

“Nagisa, eh?” the man seemed to ponder, sharing a long look with his hopeful daughter. “Well, could do wit’ a name, I guess. Isobu-sama don’ got no nevermin’?”

“The name is hers to do with as she might wish.”

“Guess we’s Nagisa now, Umi-chan.”

“Woohoo! Thanks papa! Thanks Isobu-nii-san!”

~*~

Her father was a rare addition to their interactions – dare he call them playdates – though after a little while her brother joined them as well. He was darker than his sister and his hair was a brighter red but he had violet eyes and penchant towards stories that involved foxes.

Isobu was saving up some of the more ridiculous ones for if he ever ran into Kurama again, just because it’d be fun to irritate him. Not that it was hard, or anything.

Mizuiro was also a child of the sea, but he didn’t always come out with Umiko to play or listen to Isobu tell tales of times long gone by.

His loud girl, though, with her stories and her imagination, never missed a day. She came when it was raining, she came when it was burning hot, she came when she was ill. He’d grown fond of her, his little loud friend with her boisterous laugh and her even more ridiculous heart that could accept even a creature such as he into it.

Most humans were complicated, greedy things.

All Umiko and his other Nagisa needed was the sea, family, and a good story to keep them content. Now that the girl had introduced him to her father, Isobu had been given permission to join them when they were out fishing. Umiko couldn’t play then, busy working to keep the family fed, but the other fishermen and women would tell stories. They’d sing songs.

They’d listen to his as well.

They’d listen as he told the history of once was in the world before, how the world had split and shifted at the birth of himself and his siblings. How the Great Beings - as they called them - all had names such as he, that they were also intelligent individuals. They’d listen and ask questions about things long passed, about what the ocean deep down in the dark was like.

They asked about the wonders of the world that they’d never had the chance to see. That they likely wouldn’t in their lifetimes.

Several people who worked with her father had somehow been lumped into the Nagisa name as well, mostly because Umiko would turn her eyes at him and grin widely. Strange, how she’d ask his permission to give out a name he’d told her she could use as she’d like, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like it. In an odd way, the Nagisa were his.

They all called him brother Isobu in some variation or another. Well, except for Umiko’s father, who never called him anything other than Isobu-sama.

None of the humans tried to break the man of it, so Isobu figured it was some cultural thing amongst them that he’d never really understand.

Humans were baffling, even if he had a few that he’d become attached to.

As always, time slipped away from him, even with his Nagisa to keep him occupied. Umiko aged, her father aged faster, and soon a young woman stood before him instead of a little girl.

She still danced on the shoreline trying not to step on baby turtles, she still had epic battles with him born from her very mind.

The only thing that really changed was when she found that _man._

~*~

“Nii-san, dis’s Gin!” she hollered out at him as he crested out of the water, dragging a very pale man behind her. “He’s a ronin da’s stayin’ wit’ us ‘til he finds’a place.”

There was a sword on his hip and damaged armor strapped to his body; he stunk of ninjutsu and chakra wielded in a way it had never been meant to.

He stared at Umiko like she was a dream come true.

Something twisted in his dimensional pocket of a stomach as he stared at the man he’d heard so much about in the past weeks.

“Umiko,” Isobu rumbled, lark eye falling half lidded as the pale faced, dark eyed man stared up at him from behind pale purple bangs. “This Isobu feels that a ronin has found his place to stay.”

“Eh?”

Isobu might not fully understand humans and their desires to copulate or breed, considering he was a chakra creature who was technically a piece of his own grandmother, but he knew happiness. It had been a long, long time since he’d known it so completely as he did with the laughter of a little girl turned young woman, but there was a joy in their joined hands. Umiko herself might not comprehend how she felt yet, but this man knew himself well enough to say that his heart had been stolen by a fisherman’s daughter who’d befriended the Turtle of the Tides.

Gin became another addition to their romps and play, a more realistic worldview added to the genjutsu they created.

Perspective.

He was significantly more down to earth than either of them were, and sometimes he took the ideas they came up with and made them reality.

It took a little while and several borrowed Seal Masters from his growing menagerie of Nagisa, but the Coral Castle of Tori-gumi came to life beneath the sea. The wind catcher of Pirate Guzma came to be on the barren sails of ships in dead water waiting for a breeze, Seals pulling the wind to them.

A sword that Umiko asked him to help make for Gin, a present for their union.

He’d heated the metal in the dimensional forge in his stomach for the blacksmiths and then Umiko had put little droplets of her blood in it.

To connect them, she’d said, as she’d painted Seals onto the surface of the blade with ink and chakra, sinking her blood into the metal. It took on a slightly pinkish sheen, reminding him of the coral that trailed behind him when he wasn’t careful with his chakra.

For the ceremony, he’d taken them deep, deep down to that place beneath the sea they’d created together, and watched them wed, gave his grudging blessing. Her father had been ailing, old and feebler than those of Uzumaki descent, but he’d lasted long enough to tie their hands together with chakra and locks of their hair braided together.

By the time they’d had their first child, he’d passed away.

The little one was much like her mother, though they didn’t name her for the customary amount of time to her people. Her skin was paler than her mother’s and her hair more purple than red, but she was still a loud, cheerful thing.

She liked to dance on the shore with baby turtles as well, safe in the cradle of Isobu’s tails.

He was pretty sure he’d eaten all the Hamaguchi a few years passed, but better safe than sorry, really.

Her name was Ame, and she braided metal beads and rings into her hair when she decided to learn kenjutsu from her father. Mizuiro had taken over the fishing trade even though Umiko was the Head of their family, something that Isobu had belatedly realized he’d made her when he gave her a surname. It hadn’t been his intention, but it did explain why her beloved Papa had seen fit to bow to him where Umiko had never thought of it. Why no one had questioned her giving the name to those not born of her family even as a child, willful and generous.

Isobu had unknowingly given her power and prestige, made her a power in Uzushio that a little peasant girl without a name would never have had.

Neither of them had thought much of it, but Gin could be ruthlessly practical, and tended towards gathering resources and amenities that could protect the Nagisa. He told Isobu after Ame’s birth that his Clan had been destroyed by Warring Clans, that his family of Samurai hadn’t stood a chance against all of their Elemental Ninjutsu.

That he only wanted to protect what he had made together with Umiko on that shoreline, that he never wanted to know loss like that again.

Despite the samurai stinking of corrupted ninshu, Isobu grudgingly came to care for him as he watched his hands steadily guide his daughter’s on the hilt of a sword. As he watched his smile and dance willingly with Umiko on the shore, silly though it might be to a more serious individual.

They made each other happy, and he couldn’t begrudge them that.

Isobu had lost his family too, if to their own volition rather than death, so he couldn’t fault him for clinging to happiness where he’d found it. Even if it was with Umiko, his loud girl with too many stories and so little time.

After all, he’d done much the same when she’d extended friendship to him.

He loved his Nagisa. Each and every one of them.

Even that friend stealing swordsman.

~*~

Time passed, as was inevitable.

Things changed, which was also inevitable.

While out swimming in the deep, the boisterous megalodon sang of the Hoshigaki who had won a contract from him and his kin. How they would be bound together until the woman died and the next one took up the mantel from her to fight alongside them.

Isobu had an idea.

He’d never been particularly gifted with Fuuinjutsu, that had always been Shukaku and Matatabi’s area of interest – Matatabi was interested in _everything_ – but he was passible. When he’d discussed his ideas with one of his Seal Master Nagisa, they’d thought that perhaps the idea could have some merit.

So he thought, and thought, considered calling his siblings but ultimately decided against it. They wouldn’t answer anyway.

They never did.

He crafted a Seal for Ame’s Coming of Age Ceremony and gifted it to her with the knowledge that not much would change, and yet _everything_ would change.

This was a chain he had crafted himself, and he wouldn’t be able to break it himself, though he doubted he’d ever want to. This was his family now, children being born, laughter, human’s crawling over his shell to explore and see what sea life had gotten caught on him the last time he’d dived. This was the ability for a little girl, now a woman, to call him to her side when she was overwhelmed and in need of aid.

Ame was strong and swift like her father, but she liked to dance and laugh and accept people deep into her heart, like her mother.

It would be dangerous, a lively girl like her on the water, wielding a sword and the curiosity of youth.

Best to nip any lingering worries about the potentially remaining Hamaguchi in the bud.

~*~

When Gin passed, he asked to be buried where he’d been brought into the family, down in the deep where the coral still grows higher and higher. The Seals were updated every year around the same time, making sure to keep the entire structure safe from the pressure.

Umiko and Mizuiro had aged, lines on their faces, slopes to their shoulders, but they smiled through their tears. Stories of Gin’s life spread like wildfire through the Nagisa, they sang of him for a week, the ronin who had become their Samurai. Of the blood he spilled and the blood he’d saved over the years.

Of the wife and daughter and great family he’d left behind.

After Gin passed, Isobu knew it was only a matter of time.

It had been nearly a century since he’d met a little girl who danced on the shoreline and screamed greetings from a distance. She was old now, with white lining her auburn hair and age dulling her eyes if not her smile, stories still sliding from her lips to make great things. To bring joy and wonder to the creature who had thought this circle of monotony that was his life would continue indefinitely.

Isobu knew, though, that death was inevitable.

So, too, did his friend, his Umiko.

“Neh, Nii-san,” she said to him one morning, milky eyes crinkled with a smile. “I think ma story might be endin’.”

“Umiko…”

Rare though it was, the Three Tailed Turtle opened both eyes to look at his little, weathered friend. He wanted to remember her in her entirety, as best he could.

“‘S’alright,” she patted one of the plates of his hands comfortingly. “All things end. Da sea gives an’ da sea takes ‘way. I like da way everythin’ went, though, no question ‘bout that,” she leaned back with a smile, just as bright and joyful as when she’d been a child lost on the water. “Will ya tell’t fo’ me someday? To alla them’s that comin’ after?”

“Of course,” he rumbled, feeling his eyes burn like they hadn’t since his father had decided to die. “This Isobu will always remember his little girl from the sea and shore.”

“Oh, good, good,” she patted him again, leaning back against him contently, familiarly. “Ame’s a good girl, ‘n she’s got good kids,” all four of them, two sets of twins now, and their sharp teeth and silvery skin spoke of Hoshigaki, though she’d never named their sire. “Their stories’re gonna be excitin’, don’ ya think?”

“Yes,” rasped the Reef Turtle, tears sliding down his craggy rock of a face as he felt her heartbeat slowing, her chakra pulling away like the tide. “This Isobu will remember them _all_ for his friend, dear Umiko.”

“Good, good,” faintly slid out of her smiling mouth as her eyes slipped shut on the sunset glimmering fiery on the water. “Think I’d like that…”

They buried her next to Gin in the sea, to be remembered by the stories she’d born and the ones she’d left behind.

When Ame said her goodbyes, she almost looked more aggrieved for Isobu than for her own pain at the loss of her mother.

“‘M’sorry, Nii-san,” the swordswoman with her metal jingling rings and shark teeth in her hair said. “Sorry ya gotta out live ‘s all.”

“No,” gently, gently, he lifted his hand and touched the tip of one claw against the jade pillar they’d made, careful writing that briefly summarized the adventure of a lifetime engraved in it. “No, this… _I_ am not sorry for who you are. The briefness of your lives is what makes you burn so very brightly. I could never regret that.”

He looked over at a little girl he’d help raise into the strong, rough woman who stood before him, carrying her father’s sword adorned in her mother’s blood at her side.

“I will carry each of you with me, always.”

They were the Nagisa, and they were his.

~*~

And so it went, for generations.

The individuals came and went, but the Nagisa ever existed, growing, changing, incorporating whoever they saw fit into their numbers. There had been a brief disagreement on the size of their family at one point, but the current wielder of his chain had called for him and he had come.

It had been _quite_ a brief disagreement.

Setsuna had rolled her eyes at the backpedaling of the Uzumaki Clan nobility and shook her black dreadlocks filled with feathers and metal beads.

“Nii-san here ain’t f’r sale,” she told them flatly, her serrated teeth flashing as she spoke, silvery eyes in dark skin narrowed irritably. “Slavery’s illegal, anyhow. Pretty sure tha’s one o’ _your_ fancy laws, an all.”

“Sale?” he echoed, sliding a tail over automatically for the woman to leap up onto. “Why would someone attempt to _buy_ me?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged, patting his face companionably. “Politics, prolly. Don’t rightly know what gets rich folks goin’.”

“I am not a product,” he told the very pale red-haired man who stared up at him from his shimmery silk robes. “I am not for purchase. Go away.”

With much bowing and scraping, they did just that, leaving the Nagisa fleet to laugh in their wake and go back to business as usual. For a long moment, Setsuna and Isobu watched them tuck their tails and take their fancy delicate boats back to the shore before bursting out into laughter themselves. That was the first time he’d ever been treated like a commodity, like something to be traded or bartered.

“Want to meet a megalodon?” he asked spontaneously, feeling the rumbling, cheerful chakra far out at the crevasse, likely singing of something new again. “He knows some good songs.”

“Oh, you _bet_ I do!” familiar delight sparkled in her eyes at the thought, features not particularly similar to his long passed Umiko, but the spirit still there. “Does he got a name?”

Oh. Well.

“Uh, hm.”

“Nii-san, are ya tellin’ me ya never asked him for ‘is _name_?”

“It never seemed like the time!”

“Hopeless, honestly, just hopeless, Nii-san.”

It turned out, his name was Hansuke and he was delighted that Isobu had taken the initiative to ask him. Isobu couldn’t remember how many centuries it had been since he’d first heard the singing megalodon swimming around in the divide, but he was older than the bijuu had thought. Apparently, his kind had never died from old age, that he had ever heard of, and generally died in combat, meaning that he’d been missing out on a potentially longtime acquaintanceship.

Because he hadn’t wanted to interrupt the songs, to change things himself. Content to let his Nagisa do as such for him.

“That shark’s sweet on ya,” he was later told by Setsuna when they’d returned to the fleet as she settled in the crow’s nest for the night. There was no real need for a watch when he was there, but they had the habit for a reason. “Was real fekkin’ pleased that ya started up a word ‘nstead o’ jus’ listenin’ to him yammer.”

“I - what?”

“Yeah, ya got an admirer.”

Putting that ridiculousness aside was harder than he’d thought it would be, but Isobu had a lot of practice with ignoring things. Usually it was the silence in his head where there had been constant conversation once, but unwanted thoughts could be construed the same.

It was _distracting_ thinking about stuff like that, it made him confused and unsure of what he was supposed to do. A feeling he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Still, Hansuke became something of a friend, though he never did any of those silly things that humans did when courting, so Isobu was pretty sure that Setsuna was wrong. They talked about the extinction of ninshu and the world chakra that was closest in the deep places of the world that could only be reached in the sea. They talked about the continents on the other side of the crevasse that had a strange perversion of ninjutsu that used nature chakra as fuel.

Just. Normal things.

The kinds of things he might speak to his siblings about, though with significantly more races and fewer arguments, although they did have a few debates.

Sometimes the great shark would slide his rough hide against Isobu’s shell to relieve an itch, bump into him companionably as they swam along. Sometimes Isobu would curiously touch scars in thick hide from when Hansuke was much, much younger, and sometimes he’d bump back.

He had a friend, and he had a family. That was all that really mattered, that he wasn’t alone anymore waiting on eternity to end.

Time passed, people changed and Isobu stayed the same.

And then another human entered his life, only this time to ruin it.

~*~

“Nii-san!” Akane was screaming, her rage a living thing, whipping the wind and water with the force of a storm. “Nii-san!”

There was grief there, too.

Bodies floated in the water around them, shattered ships with coral coated hulls contained the dregs of his family, those who still survived.

“Akane!” he called weakly; chakra was being smothered beneath the Mokuton that bound him in place. “You have to go!”

“Won’t abandon you!” she snarled, struggling to her feet, the shattered remnants of Gin’s sword glinting on the deck beside her. “The Nagisa _always_ stand with Isobu-nii-san!”

She was trembling with exhaustion, features pale and bruised and bloodstained as she glared at the Senju man. The Seal on her arm glowed with her conviction, calling to his own, bringing it up from the depths that it had been repressed.

And then her blood sprayed out into the water and she slumped once again to her knees.

Senju Hashirama was a monster. Isobu had never met someone like him before and he wished that he never had.

Her chakra sputtered and twisted in on itself as her remaining hand lifted up to the stump of her shoulder, trying to staunch the blood in shock. Next to her, bruised and winded with damaged armor, stood the leader of the Senju, his long dark hair tangled and waterlogged by salt and the wind that still whipped around them.

The arm that he’d chained himself to was in his hands, the chakra sputtering and dying as it was separated from her body. A twitch of his chakra and it burned in green fire, twisting away the joining of Isobu’s chakra with his latest Nagisa Head.

The last thing he saw before he was pulled into the belly of some fool who didn’t need a name, was the grief, of loss twisting across Akane’s face as she bled into the water. Surrounded by the shattered remains of her blade and their family.

He had promised Umiko that he’d know them all, every Nagisa. That he’d remember their stories until the end of time.

Isobu had broken that promise.

~*~

Being Sealed in a jinchuuriki was… it was more uncomfortable than painful, but more than anything it was mind numbingly boring.

There were no new stories to tell, no children to teach, no carefully watching for dangers in the water or exploring the deep. There were no competitions with Akane to see who could push the ships faster with water manipulation alone, there were no solemn songs when someone passed away. There were no leisurely swims with Hansuke listening to his friend come up with new songs that portrayed more than the war between sharks and porpoises.

Whales no longer sang in the distance, squid no longer cast riddles like a net, and there were no members of his Nagisa to play with.

It was monotonous and depressing.

It was familiar.

Like he’d never met Umiko and relearned happiness outside of loneliness in the absence of his siblings.

It continued like this until he’d learned that his slaver was planning to attack Uzushiogakure. To attack the shore that was home to his family, his Nagisa. What remained of them, anyway.

For the first time since his Sealing in his weakened state, Isobu fought. He fought long and hard and enraged at the thought of someone using his power to hurt those he’d safeguarded for generations. For _centuries,_ longer than these petty little Village had ever been a thought in that monster’s head.

He was blinded by his rage.

When he came to himself, he had another jailer.

He must have killed the last one, weak as it was after years as his cage, age making it frail in comparison to the mass of him.

Uzushio was gone though.

His Nagisa, likely, with it. They’d never have abandoned the others, not until the very last of them died, tenacious and loyal to the last, every silly adventurous one of them.

He wondered, briefly, painfully, if this is was Gin had felt when he’d lost his family before he’d come to them.

The host he had now, his jailer, was a boy named Yagura. Too young to have taken part in the assault against Uzushio, but vicious in a way that Isobu was weary of.

There was already so much cruelty in this world, in these humans, why did they taint their children with it as well?

This Yagura was tenacious though, and Isobu didn’t hate him, though he could never fathom feeling fondness for his jailer, a child of those that he had been _sold_ to. The Uzumaki had tried to buy him from his Nagisa once, and Setsuna had told him that slavery was illegal. That to claim ownership of another sentient being was a criminal offense to everyone across the Elemental Nations.

These humans, this Kiri nin, they didn’t care about things like that. Didn’t think that he was a living, thinking being.

He was power to these people.

That was worse than being an omen of good tidings, than being a creature waved at and forgotten once out of sight.

When he was with the Nagisa, he’d had little to do with the Uchiha that had been allied to Uzushio. They’d never come out on the water and they’d never earned the secret of what the Nagisa were to the Village.

He knew what the Sharingan looked like, though, and when he saw it through Yagura’s eyes, he ached suddenly and fervently for a brother long dead.

And then he thought little at all.

~*~

Life was a cage for Isobu, after Senju Hashirama tore his world apart.

His jailer’s body and chakra system were the first cage, physical and spiritual as it was. The Sharingan eye of a madman the second cage, a cage of the mind, twisting and weaving into his senses.

Perhaps it would have been a little more encompassing if Isobu hadn’t been so well versed in genjutsu, if he hadn’t spent a century building complex illusions with the exuberance of a child pressing him on. Perhaps when the woman who felt a little like an Uzumaki had boiled his jailer alive he’d have been slightly less cognizant of the world around him. Perhaps he would have perished and needed time to reform, confused as his mind was.

Instead, Isobu exploded out of his failing container and fled, leaving chaos in his wake.

His mind was still a cage that held him, kept him confused and more pliant than he’d prefer, but at least his body was mostly his own again.

There were no Nagisa to return to, should he return to the sea, but perhaps Hansuke would be there. Perhaps his friend still lived, the humans hadn’t used some contrary logic to target him in the deep places of the world.

Isobu found an inlet in which to recover and slid beneath the water, weary in body, heart and mind.

He slept.

Waking was battle over his head, chakra swimming around him as metal dully clashed against metal, blood in the water. It was confusion and sudden intense fear that he had been found, that he would be captured and enslaved once again.

Damaged as he still was, tied by the Sharingan’s bindings, Isobu exploded out of the water into the middle of what seemed to be a warzone.

Tails whipped angrily, fearfully around him, slamming into delicate human bodies, water twisting in whirlpools as his mist spun into the air.

They would die, he’d kill them, he’d _obliterate_ _himself_ before he let them take him again.

And.

Then.

“Turtle Nii-san!”

His body moved on its own as his large eye struggled to focus, caught in a red haze, stopping on bright green eyes and copper hair, on a sword held in an intimately familiar stance in her hand dripping blood. The other cupped at her mouth in an achingly familiar memory that tipped his eye to burning. The metal rings braided into her hair, beads and senbon twisted into a practical but artistic style he was so familiar with.

One of them lived. At least one.

**_“NAAAA…_ **

**_GIIII…_ **

**_SAAAA…”_ **

Perhaps he had more stories to remember for Umiko after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Iktsuarpok: the feeling of anticipation when you are expecting company and keep checking outside to see if they have arrived yet.


End file.
